"How to Publish Rather than Perish in the American Liberal Arts College:
Making Connections, Maintaining Continuity, and Understanding University Culture"
Although each university has a unique identity, there are important similarities between all brick-and-mortar American institutions of higher learning when it comes to expectations for tenure and promotion. Tenure-track and restricted faculty members often feel disempowered and overwhelmed when facing the obstacles that must be overcome in the quest for job security. The assurance that they will always be able to practice the vocation they so deeply cherish is essential. Tenure and financial security may seem like golden apples in the corporate-like academy, but one can ensure a bright future by adopting a sensible and time-proven approach when on the job. This talk will focus on how to remain faithful to and the importance of the three C’s for junior faculty. Although the principles surrounding Connections, Continuity, and Culture must be used for each part of the triad of teaching, research, and service, I will examine the application of them to research during my quest for tenure and promotion at Christopher Newport University. Making the right connections within my institution but also at regional, national, and international conferences made the publication of two collaborative book projects possible for me in a relatively short period of time. Understanding the culture of my own institution facilitated the acquisition of necessary funds for research trips, copyediting, and purchasing illustration rights. Moreover, by being consistent year after year in terms of productivity, I was able to convince the upper administration at my institution that granting me tenure was a worthwhile investment. Although this presentation will provide an overview of my journey publishing different types of peer-reviewed research, its main focus will be an eighteenth-century manuscript that I recently co-edited and co-translated with Geneviève Boucher of the University of Ottawa.
